Lawsuit, documents reveal years of police surveillance of British journalists

Freelance video journalist James Parkinson, 44, and freelance photographer Jess Hurd, 41, react during an interview at their home in east London Friday, Nov. 21 2014. The pair are among six British journalists who are suing London’s Metropolitan Police and Britain’s Home Office over police surveillance of journalists’ movements. (AP Photo/Raphael Satter) (The Associated Press)

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Freelance video journalist James Parkinson, 44, and freelance photographer Jess Hurd, 41, gesture at police surveillance files and other documents laid out on their living room table at their home in east London Friday Nov. 21, 2014. The pair are among six British journalists who are suing Londonís Metropolitan Police and Britainís Home Office over police surveillance of journalists' movements. (AP Photo/Raphael Satter) (The Associated Press)

In this photo taken Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2014, freelance video journalist James Parkinson, center wearing a helmet and holding his camera on a tripod, films scuffles between British police officers, right, and anti-austerity demonstrators during a rally in central London. Parkinson, a 44-year-old freelancer who has covered hundreds of protests - some of them for The Associated Press - is among six British journalists who are suing London’s Metropolitan Police and Britain’s Home Office over police surveillance of journalists’ movements. Parkinson, three photographers, an investigative journalist and a newspaper reporter are filing the lawsuit after obtaining their surveillance records. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) (The Associated Press)

LONDON – Six British journalists are suing Scotland Yard over documents that show the police had them under surveillance for more than a decade.

Britain's National Union of Journalists says a public records request showed extensive surveillance of the six — who include three photographers, a video journalist, an investigative journalist and a reporter — by London's Metropolitan Police stretching back more than a decade.

The lawsuit adds to a drip-drip of public disclosures about British police secretly seizing journalists' telephone records in leak investigations. Several senior officers have recently acknowledged using anti-terrorism powers to uncover journalists' sources by combing through the records, drawing concern in Parliament and outrage from media groups.

British police declined to comment on the lawsuit announced Thursday.